June 7, 2001 | 11:10 a.m.

Tuesday morning, my plane from Seattle was taxiing down the runway at Newark just as it was getting bright out. The sun was halfway up, dragging orange and yellow ribbons across the sky, and I was halfway up as well, barely awake, lifting my head from the window I'd been sleeping against. I looked out at the sunrise and tried to close my eyes before it could affect me, but a tiny glint of sunlight snuck in, like a glass shard in The Snow Queen.

Try as I might, I couldn't sleep any more that morning. Not on the bus on the way into the city, and not in my bed when I lay down for an hour before going to work.

Two days, three children on the street:

Yesterday morning, a little girl in a stoller, kicking her feet in unison, stomp, stomp, stomp, as her mother pushed her down Saint Mark's Place.

This morning on 15th Street, a little boy in a stroller, feet up, kicking back as if he was in a recliner. "Reading the paper," said Adam, "reading the kleenex box."

Crossing Union Square Park a few minutes later, a little girl with big poofy hair walked along the slightly raised part of the sidewalk next to the fence that keeps us all off the grass. She had both hands in little claws up, holding them up beside her head like she was going to pretend to be a cat and chase the pigeons. But instead she walked calmly along, one small white-sneakered foot in front of the other, until she saw me smiling at her. She looked hesitantly back, then turned and put her claw-hands on the fence, sneaking a look back over her shoulder a few seconds later to see if I was still smiling.

Which of course I was.